Our environment is constantly changing. There is no denying that. However, as our environment changes, so does the need to become increasingly aware of the problems that surround it. With a massive influx of natural disasters, warming and cooling periods, different types of weather patterns and much more, people need to be aware of what types of environmental problems our planet is facing.

Global warming has become an undisputed fact about our current livelihoods; our planet is warming up and we are definitely part of the problem. However, this isn’t the only environmental problem that we should be concerned about. All across the world, people are facing a wealth of new and challenging environmental problems every day. Some of them are small and only affect a few ecosystems, but others are drastically changing the landscape of what we already know.

Our planet is poised at the brink of a severe environmental crisis. Current environmental problems make us vulnerable to disasters and tragedies, now and in the future. We are in a state of planetary emergency, with environmental problems piling up high around us. Unless we address the various issues prudently and seriously we are surely doomed for disaster. Current environmental problems require urgent attention.

15 Major Current Environmental Problems

1. Pollution: Pollution of air, water and soil require millions of years to recoup. Industry and motor vehicle exhaust are the number one pollutants. Heavy metals, nitrates and plastic are toxins responsible for pollution. While water pollution is caused by oil spill, acid rain, urban runoff; air pollution is caused by various gases and toxins released by industries and factories and combustion of fossil fuels; soil pollution is majorly caused by industrial waste that deprives soil from essential nutrients.

2. Global Warming: Climate changes like global warming is the result of human practices like emission of Greenhouse gases. Global warming leads to rising temperatures of the oceans and the earth’ surface causing melting of polar ice caps, rise in sea levels and also unnatural patterns of precipitation such as flash floods, excessive snow or desertification.

3. Overpopulation: The population of the planet is reaching unsustainable levels as it faces shortage of resources like water, fuel and food. Population explosion in less developed and developing countries is straining the already scarce resources. Intensive agriculture practiced to produce food damages the environment through use of chemical fertilizer, pesticides and insecticides. Overpopulation is one of the crucial current environmental problem.
]]>

asesbasi@hotmail.com (Gaia)ENVIRONMENT WRITINGSMon, 10 Sep 2018 20:45:52 +0000How Your Business Can be More Environmentally-Friendly?http://environment.gen.tr/environment-writings/826-how-your-business-can-be-more-environmentally-friendly.html
http://environment.gen.tr/environment-writings/826-how-your-business-can-be-more-environmentally-friendly.htmlHow Your Business Can be More Environmentally-Friendly?

Looking after the planet and being green is not only the moral thing for you to do, but it can also make a lot of good business sense.

As well as promoting a healthier workplace, going green could help your business save money as well as boosting your company’s reputation as consumers are becoming more environmentally-conscious, with a third preferring to use sustainable brands.

So how can your business be greener you may ask? Here are four ways where you can start your eco-friendly journey.

Reduce Your Waste

There are probably quite a few places where your company can save on waste and they don’t require big changes to be made in the office. It could involve installing recycling bins in the office to reduce waste, such as paper and plastic bottles.

You can also cut down on any wasted energy, which will save you money in the long run. Encourage your employees to switch off their computer monitors, printers and the lights at the end of each day as standby mode still uses power overnight and on a weekend.

Go green by switching to energy efficient bulbs and replace outdated appliances with greener counterparts that will use their energy more efficiently.
]]>

The internet has become such an integral part of our daily lives that in many ways we hardly notice it any more. In the early days, there was much talk about the 'paperless' society and how the internet would have a beneficial impact on the environment. But recently, that view has been called into question. So what are the various claims about the environmental impact of the internet and what are the facts and figures underlying these claims?

Contents

1. Alex Wissner-Gross (2009)

2. Google's Response

2.1. Energy Required for each Search

2.2. Comparison with Tailpipe Emissions

2.3. Further Comparisons

3. The Scale of Google's Operations

3.1. Google's Green Credentials

4. What is a Data Centre?

4.1. Why are Data Centres Better than Local Solutions?

4.2. Google's Data Centres

5. Google's Other Energy Saving Initiatives

5.1. Renewable Energy and Carbon Off Setting

5.2. Energy Efficient Buildings

5.3. Green Transport Solutions

5.4. Google's Wider Initiatives

6. The environmental impact of the internet as a whole

6.1. The Internet in Daily Life

6.2. How Much has the Internet Expanded?

6.3. In what Ways is the Internet Used?

6.4. How Much Time is Being Spent on the Internet Each Week?

6.5. What are the Reasons for People Using the Internet?

6.6. Which Activities Were Carried out at Least Once a Week?

7. How Does all this Internet Activity Impact the Environment?

8. Why is it Difficult to Reach an Accurate Conclusion?

8.1. What We do Know?

9. The Impact of the Growth in Mobile Devices

9.1. How Much Energy do Mobile Devices Use?

9.2. Embedded Emissions

9.3. The Impact of Electronic Communications

10. But What About the Good Effects of the Internet?

10.1. Information Technology Benefits the Environment

10.2. Ways the Internet Can Benefit the Environment

11. Sources and Further Reading

11.1. Google's Carbon Footprint

11.2. Data Centers and their Impact

11.3. Growth of the Internet and its Impact

Alex Wissner-Gross (2009)

In 2009, Harvard physicist Alex Wissner-Gross published a paper on the environmental impact of the internet. An article in The Times newspaper singled out this statistic from the report: each Google search has a carbon footprint of 7g of CO2, enough to boil half a cup of water. The article also quoted statistics relating to other Google services. For example, it claimed that watching a YouTube video produced 1g of CO2 for every ten minutes watched and a typical Gmail user would produce 1.2kg annually. The use of these statistics sparked an intense debate that has continued ever since.

Google's Response

Google disagreed with this assertion and produced evidence in a number of areas to back up their view.

A Psychological Survey of Perspectives Literal, Wide, and Deep

I had intended to begin this presentation with a parody of how thoroughly psychotherapy previously neglected our relationship with the environment, but when I tried to write an ironic scenario, it kept turning into a real situation.

Picture (I was going to suggest) a city block which the client must negotiate in order to reach the therapy office. After going by a lawn reeking with pesticides, blankets of smoggy air, honking car horns, people shouting at each other, screeching tires, yelling cops, and a car crash, the client makes it to the therapist’s office and relates a brief account of this mini-odyssey, whereupon the therapist asks, “So how are things going with your mother?”

I wish this were a parody, this lapsing of the entire world into a giant Rorschach blot of psychological family values, but it isn’t. It’s how therapists the world over reasoned until rather recently, when it began to dawn on thoughtful practitioners that clients had feelings about the actual, tangible world humming along outside the self.

It’s difficult to say when this awakening began; difficult enough that it’s easier to pin down when it temporarily vanished. Early practitioners of psychotherapy had not worried unduly about the environment, but at least they recognized its psychological impact. Things changed with Freud. To be more specific, they changed when Freud decided that supposing one had been traumatized was more important psychologically than being a genuine victim. From there it was a short step to reinterpreting everything that interested or provoked the therapy patient solely in terms of the inner life, the transference, or the troubled family. Freud’s colleague Karl Abraham largely ignored the combat stress of the soldiers he worked with, attributing their symptoms instead to early problems with oral gratification or toilet training.
]]>

Hydroelectric power includes both massive hydroelectric dams and small run-of-the-river plants. Large-scale hydroelectric dams continue to be built in many parts of the world (including China and Brazil), but it is unlikely that new facilities will be added to the existing U.S. fleet in the future.

Instead, the future of hydroelectric power in the United States will likely involve increased capacity at current dams and new run-of-the-river projects. There are environmental impacts at both types of plants.

Land Use

The size of the reservoir created by a hydroelectric project can vary widely, depending largely on the size of the hydroelectric generators and the topography of the land. Hydroelectric plants in flat areas tend to require much more land than those in hilly areas or canyons where deeper reservoirs can hold more volume of water in a smaller space.

At one extreme, the large Balbina hydroelectric plant, which was built in a flat area of Brazil, flooded 2,360 square kilometers—an area the size of Delaware—and it only provides 250 MW of power generating capacity (equal to more than 2,000 acres per MW) [1]. In contrast, a small 10 MW run-of-the-rive plant in a hilly location can use as little 2.5 acres (equal to a quarter of an acre per MW) [2].

Flooding land for a hydroelectric reservoir has an extreme environmental impact: it destroys forest, wildlife habitat, agricultural land, and scenic lands. In many instances, such as the Three Gorges Dam in China, entire communities have also had to be relocated to make way for reservoirs [3].

Crude oil is used to make petroleum products used to fuel airplanes, cars, and trucks; to heat homes; and to make products like medicines and plastics. Although petroleum products make life easier, finding, producing, and moving crude oil may have negative effects on the environment. Technological advances in exploration, production, and transportation of oil and enforcement of safety and environmental laws and regulations help to avoid and reduce these effects.

Technology helps reduce the effects of drilling and producing oil

Exploring and drilling for oil may disturb land and marine ecosystems. Seismic techniques used to explore for oil under the ocean floor may harm fish and marine mammals. Drilling an oil well on land often requires clearing an area of vegetation. These impacts are reduced by technologies that greatly increase the efficiency of exploration and drilling activities. Satellites, global positioning systems, remote sensing devices, and 3-D and 4-D seismic technologies make it possible to discover oil reserves while drilling fewer exploratory wells. Mobile and smaller slimhole drilling rigs reduce the size of the area disturbed by drilling activities. The use of horizontal and directional drilling makes it possible for a single well to produce oil from a much larger area, which reduces the number of wells required to develop an oil field.

Hydraulic fracturing

An oil production technique known as hydraulic fracturing is used to produce oil from shale and other tight geologic formations. This technique has allowed the United States to increase domestic oil production significantly and reduce the amount of oil that the country imports. There are environmental concerns associated with hydraulic fracturing. Fracturing rock requires large amounts of water, and it uses potentially hazardous chemicals to release the oil from the rock strata. In some areas of the country, significant use of water for oil production may affect the availability of water for other uses and can potentially affect aquatic habitats. Faulty well construction or improper handling may result in leaks and spills of fracturing fluids.

I. Abstract

Most countries depend on oil. States will go to great lengths to acquire an oil production capability or to be assured access to the free flow of oil. History has provided several examples in which states were willing to go to war to obtain oil resources or in defense of an oil producing region. States have even become involved in conflicts over areas which may only possibly contain oil resources. This trend is likely to continue in the future until a more economical resource is discovered or until the world's oil wells run dry. One problem associated with this dependence on oil is the extremely damaging effects that production, distribution, and use have on the environment. Furthermore, accidents and conflict can disrupt production or the actual oil resource, which can also result in environmental devastation. One potential solution to this problem is to devise a more environmentally-safe resource to fuel the economies of the world.

Draft Author:

W. Corbett Dabbs (December 1996)

II. Issue Background

Although much of the world depends on the production or the trade of oil to fuel its economies, these activities can cause severe damage to the environment, either knowingly or unintentionally. Oil production, and/or transportation, can disrupt the human population, and the animal and fish life of the region. Oil waste dumping, production pollution, and spills wreak havoc on the surrounding wildlife and habitat. It threatens the extinction of several plants, and has already harmed many land, air, and sea animal and plant species.

The effects of oil on marine life are cause by either the physical nature of the oil (physical contamination and smothering) or by its chemical components (toxic effects and accumulation leading to tainting). Marine life may also be affected by clean-up operations or indirectly through physical damage to the habitats in which plants and animals live. The animals and plants most at risk are those that could come into contact with a contaminated sea surface: marine animals and reptiles; birds that feed by diving or form flocks on the sea; marine life on shorelines; and animals and plants in mariculture facilities.
]]>

A new study has looked at why and how much private sector companies are prepared to invest in Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes for tropical forests. Understanding companies' motivations and expectations can help develop new sources of funding for PES schemes from the private sector, increasing the area of tropical forest conserved worldwide.

PES schemes can allow companies to pay to help conserve an ecosystem, to ensure that the service they depend on for their business is not at risk of disappearing, to secure access to biological resources, and to demonstrate environmental responsibility. PES schemes to conserve tropical forests are a relatively new concept and little attention has been paid thus far to examine the factors that influence whether or not businesses participate voluntarily.

Using a detailed questionnaire and a complex statistical model, the study compared the hypothetical 'willingness to invest' (WTI) in tropical forest ecosystem services by 60 international and Costa Rican companies. The researchers focused on four ecosystem services: conservation of biodiversity, absorption of atmospheric CO2 (i.e. carbon sequestration), provision of water quality by filtering, flow regulation and prevention of erosion (i.e. watershed protection), and preserving scenic beauty.

An international group of researchers has proposed a new way of describing Payments for Environmental Services (PES). The new definition supplies a framework, incorporating the social aspects of PES, which can be used by practitioners, such as governments, to design and implement a variety of PES schemes.

Until now, PES schemes have been thought of in terms of Coasean economics which argues that, as long as property rights are clearly defined and transaction costs are low enough, bargaining between the parties will achieve the most efficient economic outcome. Based on this viewpoint, three conditions that PES schemes must meet have been identified: the link between land use and ecosystem service must be clear; the transactions must be voluntary; and there must be a monitoring system to ensure the service is being delivered.

However, in reality, PES schemes do not always meet all these conditions. For instance, when a land manager is paid by the state to improve water quality, consumers may not be aware that their water bills are slightly higher to pay for this; hence the transaction is not voluntary (at least from the buyers' perspective).

First: Reduce

The critical first step of waste prevention has been overshadowed by a focus on recycling. Please help to promote a greater awareness of the importance of the "Reduce" part of the Reduce-Reuse-Recycle mantra. For a great overview of how raw materials and products move around the world, see the video The Story of Stuff.

Simplify: Simplify your life as much as possible. Only keep belongings that you use/enjoy on a regular basis. By making the effort to reduce what you own, you will naturally purchase less/create less waste in the future. For information on voluntary simplicity, check out Voluntary Simplicity Websites.

Reduce Purchases: In general, think before you buy any product - do you really need it? How did the production of this product impact the environment and what further impacts will there be with the disposal of the product (and associated packaging materials)? When you are thinking about buying something, try the 30-Day Rule -- wait 30 days after the first time you decide you want a product to really make your decision. This will eliminate impulse buying.

The Compact: Join or form a Compact in your area - groups all across the globe committing for 12 months to not buy any new products (see lower right sidebar for groups).